Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Expert Estimation of Web-Development Projects: Are Software Professionals in Technical Roles More Optimistic Than Those in Non-Technical Roles?

  • Published:
Empirical Software Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Estimating the effort required to complete web-development projects involves input from people in both technical (e.g., programming), and non-technical (e.g., user interaction design) roles. This paper examines how the employees' role and type of competence may affect their estimation strategy and performance. An analysis of actual web-development project data and results from an experiment suggest that people with technical competence provided less realistic project effort estimates than those with less technical competence. This means that more knowledge about how to implement a requirement specification does not always lead to better estimation performance. We discuss, amongst others, two possible reasons for this observation: (1) Technical competence induces a bottom-up, construction-based estimation strategy, while lack of this competence induces a more “outside” view of the project, using a top-down estimation strategy. An “outside” view may encourage greater use of the history of previous projects and reduce the bias towards over-optimism. (2) Software professionals in technical roles perceive that they are evaluated as more skilled when providing low effort estimates. A consequence of our findings is that the choice of estimation strategy, estimation evaluation criteria and feedback are important aspects to consider when seeking to improve estimation accuracy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., et al. 1999. Social Psychology. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.

  • Atkinson, K., and Shepperd, M. 1994. Using function points to find cost analogies. European Software Cost Modeling Meeting. Ivrea, Italy.

  • Boehm, B. 1984. Software engineering economics. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 10(1): 4-21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowden, P., Hargreaves, M., et al. 2000. Estimation support by lexical analysis of requirement documents. J. Syst. Softw. 51: 87-98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buehler, R., Griffin, D., et al. 1994. Exploring the “Planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 67(3): 366-381.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, R. 1998. Analysis of Variance, Design and Regression. Applied Statistical Methods. Chapman & Hall/Crc.

  • Cohen, J. 1969. Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. New York: Academic Press, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heemstra, F. J., and Kusters, R. J. 1991. Function point analysis: Evaluation of a software cost estimation model. Eur. J. Inf. Syst. 1(4): 223-237.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henry, R. 1994. The effects of choice and incentives on the overestimation of future performance. Org. Behav. Human Decis. Process. 57: 210-225.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes, R. T. 1996. Expert judgment as an estimating method. Inf. Softw. Technol. (38): 67-75.

  • Jørgensen, M. 1997. An empirical evaluation of the MkII FPA estimation model. Norwegian Informatics Conference. Voss, Norway, Tapir, Oslo.

  • Jørgensen, M. 2004a. A review of studies on expert estimation of software development effort. J. Syst. Softw. 70(1–2): 37-60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jørgensen, M. 2004b. Top-down and bottom-up expert estimation of software development effort.” J. Inf. Softw. Technol. 46(1): 3-16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jørgensen, M., and Sjøberg, D. I. K. 2001. Impact of software effort estimation on software work. J. Inf. Softw. Technol. 43: 939-948.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jørgensen, M., and Sjøberg, D. I. K. 2002. Impact of experience on maintenance skills. J. Softw. Maint. Evolut.: Res. Pract. 14: 1-24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kitchenham, B. 1996. Software Metrics: Measurement for Software Process Improvement. Oxford: NCC Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kitchenham, B., Pfleeger, S. L., et al. 2002. An empirical study of maintenance and development estimation accuracy. J. Syst. Softw. 64: 57-77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kusters, R. J., Genuchten, M. J. I. M., et al. 1990. Are software cost-estimation models accurate? Inf. Softw. Technol. 32(3): 187-190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lederer, A. L., and Prasad, J. 2000. Software management and cost estimation error. J. Syst. Softw. 50: 33-42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lichtenstein, S., and Fischhoff, B. 1977. Do those who know more also know more about how much they know? Org. Behav. Human Perform. 20: 159-183.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonald, A., and Welland, R. 2001. Web engineering in practice. Proceedings of the Fourth WWW10 Workshop on Web Engineering.

  • Moløkken-Østvold, K., and Jørgensen, M. 2003. A review of surveys on software effort estimation. Proceedings of ISESE 2003, IEEE.

  • Moløkken-Østvold, K., and Jørgensen, M. 2004. Group processes in software effort estimation. Empirical Software Engineering. 9(4): 315-334.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moses, J., and Clifford, J. 2000. Learning how to improve effort estimation in small software development companies. 24th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference. Taipei, Taiwan, IEEE Comput. Soc, Los Alamitos, CA, USA.

  • Mukhopadhyay, T., Vicinanza, S. S., et al. 1992. Examining the feasibility of a case-based reasoning model for software effort estimation. MIS Quarterly June, 155-171.

  • Myrtveit, I., and Stensrud, E. 1999. A controlled experiment to assess the benefits of estimating with analogy and regression models. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 25: 510-525.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ohlsson, N., Wohlin, C., et al. 1998. A project effort estimation study. Inf. Softw. Technol. 40: 831-839.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pengelly, A. 1995. Performance of effort estimating techniques in current development environments. Softw. Eng. J. September, 162-170.

  • Reifer, D. J. 2000. Web development: Estimating quick-to-market software. IEEE Softw. 17(6): 57-64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenfeld, L., and Morville, P. 1998. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. Sabastopol, O'Reilly and Associates, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, S., and Castellan, N. J. 1988. Non-Parametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. McGraw Hill College Div.

  • Vicinanza, S. S., Mukhopadhyay, T., et al. 1991. Software effort estimation: An exploratory study of expert performance. Inf. Syst. Res. 2(4): 243-262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walkerden, F., and Jeffery, R. 1997. Software cost estimation: A review of models, process, and practice. Adv. Comput. 44: 59-125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walkerden, F., and Jeffery, R. 1999. An empirical study of analogy-based software effort estimation. J. Empir. Soft. Eng. 4: 135-158.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whyte, G., and Sebenius, J. K. 1997. The effect of multiple anchors on anchoring in individual and group judgment. Org. Behav. Human Decis. Mak. 69(1): 75-85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiegers, K. E. 1999. Software process improvement in web time. IEEE Softw. 16(4): 78-86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wonnacott, T.H., and Wonnacott, R.J. 1990. Introductory Statistics. John Wiley & Sons.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering Department, Simula Research Laboratory, 1325, Lysaker, Norway

    Kjetil Moløkken & Magne Jørgensen

Authors
  1. Kjetil Moløkken
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Magne Jørgensen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Magne Jørgensen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Moløkken, K., Jørgensen, M. Expert Estimation of Web-Development Projects: Are Software Professionals in Technical Roles More Optimistic Than Those in Non-Technical Roles?. Empirical Software Engineering 10, 7–30 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:EMSE.0000048321.46871.2e

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:EMSE.0000048321.46871.2e

Search

Navigation